Chapter Text
“I always walked a definite line
Cutting a dash, cutting it fine
And only once did I lose control
I gave her my soul
And I gave, and I gave, and I gave her my soul”
Only the very best – Marina Kaye
//
After the debacle at GC-Buzz, they don’t see or talk to each other for two weeks.
Tessa initially tells herself that it’s a matter of circumstance. She has been busy recording new songs for her EP at the studio, busy Christmas-shopping for the whole Newman tribe, busy putting on a happy face in the presence of Noah—or even Devon. She reasons that the festive season is a bad time for everyone and that, for all intents and purposes, Mariah is probably just doing her thing, too.
But then Tessa knows she fucked up that day. Badly. For the first time since she’s known Mariah, she thinks that maybe things have gone too far; to a place beyond repair. Tessa knew that Mariah had been avoiding her since Halloween anyway, but this time around was arguably worse than before.
For some reason, Hilary invites her and Devon to GC-Buzz’s Christmas party. Mariah doesn’t even stay long enough to say hi and Tessa, guiltily, can’t help but think that it is her fault. Hilary and Devon eye her suspiciously when she asks them if Mariah is okay.
“Isn’t she supposed to be your BFF?” Hilary asks her, sporting a smile that Tessa would like to slap off her face.
Tessa smiles as genuinely as she can manage, unfurrows her brow so it seems convincing.
“She is. We just haven’t had time to catch up recently, that’s all.” She can tell that neither Devon nor Hilary seem to buy into her lie, but she is glad they don’t push further.
The longer Tessa goes without hearing anything from Mariah, the more restless she grows. By the following week, she’s almost shaking with nervous energy. She knows she should be the one to contact Mariah first, but she doesn’t think she’d be well received… She tries calling her on her cell-phone first. If she could just speak to her, just explain herself, it would all be okay, she thinks. But when she doesn’t answer after countless texts and a few cringy messages left on her voicemail, Tessa figures that perhaps Mariah needs some space instead. Thinks that it must be what she wants, that this is all good—this distance between them. She almost calls her at work one day but thinks better of it.
She gives it another week before she cracks and goes to see Sharon at Crimson Lights. She tries to be subtle when she asks how Mariah is, what she has been up to recently, if she’s been particularly busy… If Sharon knows what’s happening between them, she doesn’t really let it show.
“Mariah is fine, yes. She’s been pretty busy with work recently, I think. You know how Hilary can be… Can I get you anything?”
She orders a coffee for good measures and leaves the café feeling even more dejected. She wonders if perhaps she has ruined everything.
She’s grateful that no one seems to want to pry into the reasons behind her and Mariah’s sudden falling out. Even Noah seems to have dropped his accidental match-making for now. Even—perhaps especially—given present circumstances, she feels protective of Mariah and wants to shield her from the opinions of Genoa City. She knows, intellectually, that Mariah is a big girl and doesn’t need Tessa to protect her from anyone, but it doesn’t prevent her from feeling responsible for everything that might or might not be happening to her.
At night especially, Tessa thinks a lot about Mariah; about what they shared together, what they have been through. When sleep doesn’t come, she sneaks out of the bedroom to write songs. She writes about many things, though most nights the specter of Mariah seems to haunt her, flashing images of longing looks shared over a glass of wine, laughter and coy smiles, hazel eyes and red hair behind her eyelids.
It’s almost Christmas then, and Tessa has exhausted all possible scenarios on how to reach out to Mariah when she decides to just drop by the ranch. She hopes that Mariah is home, that Sharon or even Faith aren’t; hopes to salvage what little is left of their relationship.
//
It’s getting dark when she gets there. The lights are off and the house is plunged into darkness; she assumes that no one is in. She feels slightly ridiculous for being parked outside the house and having to wait in the dark like a stalker. Of course, in romantic movies, the hero never has to wait outside the heroine’s home for hours on end, but this is not a movie, and especially not a fairytale. She chastises herself for not fixing the heating in the second-hand car she purchased recently with one of her first paychecks. She rubs her hands together and blows on them to keep the cold at bay, and hopes that someone comes home before she freezes to death in her car.
Tessa wonders if she should have called ahead, but Mariah would probably have ignored her like she ignored all her other calls and texts. This way at least, she’s guaranteed to catch a glimpse of her; can just see if Mariah is okay, even if she only slams the door closed in Tessa's face.
A car pulls up in the driveway some 20 minutes later. She cranes her neck and recognizes Mariah’s car. She sees Mariah get out of the car, before approaching hers carefully. Tessa pushes her door open and steps out of the car as quickly as possible; feels her joints throb in protest. She needs to head back to the gym…
Mariah just stands there for a second, before turning back and making her way to the front door. Tessa rushes after her, and Mariah flinches when Tessa tries to stop her, one gentle hand on her shoulder, frozen and pink from the cold.
“What do you want?” Mariah asks; she sounds so tired, so beat down and exhausted that Tessa suddenly can’t bear to bother her.
“I just—I just wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I am. So you can leave now.” Mariah starts to retreat again and Tessa feels her stomach drop.
“No, wait. I wanted to explain. And to apologize. For that day at GC Buzz. I was a bitch and that was so uncalled for, and I’m so sorry.”
Tessa feels a bit pathetic as the words rush out of her mouth, tumbling over each other. She knows she sounds desperate, and the shivers rattling through her body from the cold don’t exactly help matters either. Mariah says nothing, until she does.
“Did you drive all the way just to tell me this?”
Tessa shrugs and wraps her arms around herself, shivering. “It’s not that far.”
Mariah scoffs and shakes her head in disbelief, and suddenly Tessa is scared that she is making things worse for herself.
“Can I—Do you mind if I come in? I won’t stay long, I promise. I don’t want to bother you, I just… wanna talk.”
Mariah lets out a deep sigh. They both stay there frozen for a moment, before Mariah looks away and climbs up the stairs on the porch. In the absence of an objection, Tessa takes it as her cue to follow her inside.
//
Mariah doesn’t spare one glance at Tessa as she shrugs off her coat and drops her bag in the entrance. Tessa remains standing there behind her, not daring to undress or go down the stairs leading to the living area. She feels her confidence wavering momentarily, acutely uncomfortable in the knowledge that she has no right to be here.
“Sharon and Scott will be home soon,” Tessa arches an eyebrow at the mention of Scott; wonders if he is living here now. She thinks that a few months prior, she would have been the first person Mariah would have told. “So whatever you have to say, please. Just… get on with it.”
She should have expected Mariah to remain cold and distant; the blow doesn’t hurt any less, though.
“I don’t know if—” Tessa hesitates. “Maybe it’s a bad time. I shouldn’t have come, really, I just…”
Miss you, she thinks but doesn’t dare say.
Mariah sighs heavily again and closes her eyes briefly. She walks the small distance towards the dining table and turns back towards her, her arms crossed against her middle as if a shield, curling in on herself. “Why are you here, Tessa?”
“I wanted to apologize. For the other day at GC Buzz.” Tessa starts, a slight tremble in her voice as she slowly makes her way closer to Mariah. She said that already, didn’t she? “I should have never accused you of ratting me out. It was unfair…”
Mariah stares at her, shows no intention of jumping in.
“You’ve always been there for me, always kept my secrets. You’ve always been so good and trustworthy, and I don’t know—I thought… For a brief moment I thought maybe things had changed and that was your way of… hurting me, like I hurt you.”
Mariah looks her dead in the eye then, steely and unwavering, and Tessa has to look away. Can’t stand for Mariah to look at her like that, in a way she never has before.
“So what? Because you don’t… reciprocate my feelings, you thought I would just start… what, being a bitch to you? Start repeating all the things you told me in confidence, because you trusted me as a friend? How petty do you think I am?!”
Mariah is seething now. Of course she is. What was she thinking, that was a stupid thing to say. Tessa feels so out of her element in front of this Mariah she doesn’t recognize. The fact that she was the one to provoke this change in Mariah... Heart in her throat, she soldiers on:
“I…I never said that.”
“Said what?”
“That—that I don’t reciprocate.”
Mariah scoffs at that. She waits a moment, as if waiting for Tessa to retract what she just said; she doesn’t. “Are you for real right now?”
“Yes I am! This… it’s not what this is about!”
“Then what is it about, Tessa?”
She takes a deep breath and starts again: “I’ve told you already. It’s about… my past and the things—the things I’ve had to deal with. That I still have to deal with.” The answer sounds weak even to her own ears, but it’s really the only reason she can safely give Mariah at this time.
“How do you expect me to believe that?! That you like me yet you’re dating Noah?! It doesn’t make sense, Tessa!”
“It’s the truth, though. You have to trust me on this.”
“How do you want me to trust you?!” she says with a shake of her head, eyes welling up. “I barely know who you are anymore! It’s—”
“Please, don’t say that…” Tessa can’t help but interrupt, suddenly desperate for Mariah to not think so badly of her.
“It’s the truth. I thought I knew you, and you knew me, maybe like no one has ever known me. I’ve confided in you with so many things, and I thought you had, too, but as it happens I don’t know anything about you! You said it yourself!”
“You don’t know… all of me. But what we shared, what I told you as we became friends all these months, it was all true. It was all me. This is still who I am.” Tessa says pleadingly, voice caught up in her throat.
The silence stretches between them and Tessa senses that her time is running low. Mariah looks down, then; takes a moment to gather her thoughts.
“Anyway, I still don’t know why you felt the need to come and tell me this. All over again. I think I got it the first time around.”
“No you didn’t! You think I lied to you that night!” she argues.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter either way, so…”
“It matters to me! I don’t want you to think that I don’t… have feelings for you, because I do!” Tessa wonders if she should stop talking; if she’s going too far, being too selfish. She knows she is, but she can’t help it. She needs Mariah to like her, at least a little bit.
“You are with Noah! Why are you telling me this?!”
“Because it’s true!”
“Why are you even with him then?”
The silence stretches again. Mariah looks at her intently, waiting for an answer Tessa cannot give her. Not yet anyway.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Right.” Mariah nods, like she expected nothing more from Tessa. Pensive, she hesitates before she adds: “You know he is my brother, right? You know it sounds like you’re playing with him? And if it didn’t make me look like the jealous, petty sister to Sharon, it’d be expected of me to… say something?”
Tessa does a double take at this. “Sharon knows?”
“Yes, Sharon knows…”
“What—why did you tell her?” Tessa can’t help the panic she feels bubbling in her throat.
Mariah scoffs. “Because she is my mom? And because she could see right through me? Could see how miserable I was because the only person I’ve ever loved just wants to be friends?”
“You love me?” It all makes sense to her in that moment. Tessa suddenly feels as though she’s having some sort of revelatory experience. Mariah is in love with her. Of course she is. How could she have been so stupid and let this happen? She still remembers first seeing Mariah at the Underground and outside Park café back in the spring. She remembers feeling inexplicably drawn to her; to her jovial, funny, caring personality. To her good looks, too. She vividly remembers that warm night of July where she comforted Mariah over Devon, holding her, kissing her hair and caressing her back as they sipped red wine on Sharon’s couch. Remembers the morning after, when she would have kissed her if it wasn’t for Noah and Devon knocking on the door a moment later. Would things be different now if they had?
Tessa doesn’t know how long she got stuck in her thoughts when she hears Mariah say: “I think you should leave.”
Tessa needs to know, though. “It’s true? You’re in love with me?”
A tear rolls down Mariah’s face. Then two. She wipes them up quickly, looking away.
“Does it matter?” She whispers, so softly that Tessa barely hears her.
Tessa feels some energy rising through her, and she knows in that instant that she needs to say something, to do something.
“Honestly, Tessa, just go. Sharon and Scott will be back anytime now. I don’t want them to see you here.”
“I love you, too.” There, she said it.
“Please, don’t make this harder than it already is.” Mariah’s voice is swallowed in a sob, and Tessa cannot stand to see her like this any longer, so she does something desperate. Something selfish, and wrong on so many levels; but something right, too.
She kisses Mariah.
Mariah freezes against her, but she doesn’t pull away. Tessa kisses her once, twice, soft but urgent, her hands cradling Mariah’s face gently. She can taste tears on her lips, isn’t sure if they’re Mariah’s or her own.
Tessa pulls back, only just so, so she can see Mariah’s face. They look at each other through heavy eyelids, their breaths shaky. Tessa’s hands hover over Mariah’s face, barely touching her, waiting to decide whether to go back or to let go.
Tessa starts to realize what she just did and thinks—knows—that this was probably a mistake. But then she feels Mariah’s hand on her waist, feels her more than sees her lean in, her other hand reaching behind Tessa’s neck and pulling her close.
Their lips reconnect and Tessa gives back as much as she gets. She grabs Mariah’s hips, pulls her close while pushing her against the dining table. Tessa opens her mouth and Mariah follows suit, dares to lick Mariah’s lips, to lick into her mouth, as Mariah just tightens her grip on the back of her neck.
Tessa loses herself into the kiss, focuses on the way Mariah’s lips and tongue feel against her, the way her body, her skin feels under her palms. She tries to save it all in; to remember, for later. The dip of her waist, the scent of her perfume, the way their breasts feel pressed against each other.
Tessa doesn’t know how long it lasts, seconds or minutes. They pull away with heaving chests, lips still so close they almost brush. Tessa wishes she could stay there for hours and take the time to revel in what just happened. But she can't.
“I’m so sorry. For everything,” Tessa whispers finally, leaving one last, chaste kiss on Mariah’s lips.
She squeezes Mariah’s hand once before turning away. She doesn’t dare to look at Mariah; cannot look at her. She feels her own eyes well up again with unshed tears as she makes her way to the door. She pauses momentarily before letting herself out, the door closing shut behind her.